“Come on Down and get Your Real Fake Doors!”

Daily Meditation 462–6/2/2023

Salesmen.

The plaid coat.
Unbuttoned, sweatstained collar pulled taut from a tie that’s clearly been taken on and off day after day without untying.
Baggy, unflattering Walmart slacks.
The “flying squirrel” dress shirt from the Kohl’s clearance rack, flappy sleeves and poor quality Oxford cloth.
Worn penny loafers from a decade prior.
Greasy combover and equally greasy smile…

The mental image of the salesman is an unsettling one, certainly.

Here’s the rub:

We’re all salesmen.

Every day.

You need to sell yourself constantly to the world around you.
Your confidence.
Beliefs.
Competence.
Abilities, and more.

To get mates.
To attract friends.
To engender healthy familial relationships.
To get jobs (or raises or promotions).

We should be constantly working on our salesmanship to the world around us — not the other way around.

You cannot mold the world to your whims and wishes…
And it would be laughable to try to endeavor to do so. Tantrums, dictates, edicts, and mandates will buy you so many (forced) miles from the world, but — as we learned from Stalin, the worst murderer in history — you will only get so far and live in utter paranoia.

However, you can sell yourself to the world around you to attract mates, better jobs, and positive relationships.

You can mold yourself to be a better person, inside and out.

But here’s the catch:

You absolutely must not do so under the veil of Narcissism.

The manner in which you “sell” yourself must be genuine!

As the YouDaimonia maxim goes:

“Act in a manner consistent with the person you aspire to become.”

If you insist to the world you are the smartest engineer, the greatest athlete, the most wealthy, or the most handsome, how do you know? Is it true?

Walking with swagger and speaking with arrogance will only serve to crush you.

Portraying yourself with easy confidence and a grasp of your competences paired with an ability to say “I really don’t know that — I don’t understand” is how you learn from others, attract others, and through this learning and attraction become a better and more improved person…
Which you can “sell” more broadly.

So, yes — improve yourself.

Seek for the Four Tenets:

Physical Wellness.
Spiritual Wellness.
Financial Wellness.
And Relationship Wellness.

And as you improve in these, you’ll become both a better salesman and make yourself more salable simultaneously.

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These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”